Analytic Model for Airport Network in the Asia-Pacific Region

초록

Up to now, studies on the air market have mainly been focused on passengers, airlines and airports, in economic and business perspectives. However, there is a need to acknowledge the fact that the air transport market takes on a complicated network format, comprising airports as nodes, and air routes as links. Network science began to attract the sociology sector’s attention since the late 1960s, and branched out into other fields such as the internet, physics and mathematics in the 1990s. In the new millennium, researchers began to study airport networks in the global as well as national perspectives. This research applies the concepts of ‘degree,’ ‘closeness’ and ‘betweenness’ as defined in the social network science field to the analysis of airport networks. Also, the concept of clustering will also be applied in analyzing certain countries. The object of the network consists of countries in the Asia-Pacific region (approx. 30), including both domestic and international lines. The concepts of betweenness and clustering are useful indexes for forecasting future changes and determining the value of airports in airport networks. This research will analyze the air market in the Asia-Pacific region in the aspect of network, and identify promising airports in the future air market. Key words: airport network, social network, betweenness, air routes, clustering